


Old Secrets and Old Spies

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: Son of a spider [2]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Sherlock (TV), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, BAMF!John, Gen, Secret Identity, Spies, slight crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John are called in to consult with Scotland Yard after a murder at the Russian embassy, and John is surprised to see a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Secrets and Old Spies

**Author's Note:**

> _This is a sequel to_ Little Spider, _and will make zero sense unless you read that fic first._

Sherlock was in high spirits, delighted at the prospect of solving a murder at the Russian embassy. John went along, as he always did, not expecting anything out of the ordinary.

His expectations were wrong.

The man waiting with Lestrade was old, but John recognised the broad face and sharp eyes, the crooked sliver of a smile. It was a face John hadn’t seen since he was a boy, but a face he knew, all the same. 

He couldn’t quite contain his surprise, and felt the hitch in his walk and the change in his facial expression with annoyance. It was nothing most people would notice, but certainly anyone trained would.

Sherlock noticed instantly, of course.

“You recognise him,” said Sherlock.

“He knew my mother,” John murmured back. Understanding lit Sherlock’s eyes, but he said nothing as they approached the waiting ambassador’s aide – ambassador’s aide? John wondered what he _really_ was – and Lestrade.

“Sherlock, John, this is Andrei Alenichev,” Lestrade said, indicating the familiar man.

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock introduced, shaking the man’s offered hand. “And my associate, Dr John Watson.”

Because John was looking for it, he saw the tiny flicker of hesitation when Andrei heard his name.

“ _Privet_ ,” John added politely, because he wanted to see what Andrei did next.

The man took it smoothly enough, as John had expected.

“You speak Russian?” he smiled, as though John hadn’t spent half his childhood delivering encrypted notes to this man.

John shrugged, rolling with the pretence.

“Sherlock does,” he said modestly. “I’ve picked up a thing or two, though.”

“I’m sure you have.” Andrei’s tone was just dry enough to make John suppress a grin. Andrei turned to Sherlock. “This is a terrible thing to happen inside our embassy, Mr Holmes.”

By some miracle John’s face didn’t so much as twitch, at the slight emphasis on ‘ _inside_ our embassy’ _._ Sherlock glanced at John anyway, a glint of humour in his eyes telling John that he’d picked up on the same implication John had.

No, John thought. He was certain that the murder itself didn’t bother Andrei one bit, only the public location and nature of the crime.

“I hope that you will be able to discover the culprit,” Andrei went on, looking terribly earnest.

“I’ll do my best,” Sherlock said politely. Andrei nodded.

“Thank you.” He turned to John. “Dr Watson, I have read so much about all of your adventures. Come, you must discuss them with me.” He smiled that crooked smile John remembered. “Indulge an old man.”

John glanced at Sherlock, whose gaze had flickered over Andrei for an instant. Sherlock gave a tiny nod. 

“Why not, yeah,” John agreed.

“Excellent!” Andrei’s smile was positively avuncular. “Come this way.”

John glanced back at Sherlock one more time, and followed Andrei.

Andrei showed John into a very nicely furnished office, and shut the door.

“We swept for bugs only this morning,” he said cheerfully, “so it should be clear, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to sneak someone in with your policemen to install some new ones.”

John thought that sounded just like Mycroft, so he said nothing.

The two men sat.

“John Watson,” said Andrei, smiling wryly, and switched to speaking Russian. “It has been so long! And you, you have become quite the paragon of British virtue, if the papers and the internet are to be believed. ‘Hatman and Robin,’ I think was the phrase.”

John somehow kept a placid face, even though he wanted to laugh, as he always did, at the reminder of the terrible pun and how cross Sherlock had been about it.

“Well,” John said mildly, also in Russian, “this _is_ my home.”

“And yet, you were once a child agent for Russia,” A sighed. “Ah, how things change. Drink?” 

“Ah… what is it?”

“Vodka, of course.” Andrei looked faintly reproving at the fact that John even needed to ask.

John thought about it.

“Yeah, sure.”

Andrei pulled a large bottle of vodka and two glasses out of a desk drawer, and poured one for himself and John.

“We’ve been receiving some interesting inquiries about your mother, lately. Your doing?”

John drank some of his vodka and considered how best to respond to the question, and how much he could trust the man in front of him.

“Sort of,” he replied. “Have you heard of a man named Moriarty?”

Andrei went still.

“I know of him,” he said warily. “A dark, dangerous man. It was my understanding he was killed some years ago.”

“Yeah,” said John. “Unofficially, that was me.”

Andrei stared at him.

“ _You?_ ” There was a certain amount of respect mixed in with the astonishment. John nodded.

“He decided to kidnap me, to get to Sherlock. A mistake, obviously, because he had no idea what I was capable of. Certain parties in the government covered it up, but it was pretty clear I had skills that someone like me shouldn’t have. I ended up having to explain that my mother was a Russian operative. Not something I _wanted_ to explain, obviously, but I was in a difficult situation.” John drank some more vodka. “I’m not sure yet whether they’ve worked out Natalie Watson’s real identity, but they’ll be working on it for a while, I expect.”

“I am impressed,” said Andrei. He looked it. “Here I had assumed that you had put your past behind you, such as it was, and it turns out that not only was I wrong, but that your training was far greater than I believed.”

John thought about that.

“Mama lied about it, didn’t she?”

Andrei grinned. 

“She did indeed.”

There was a knock at the door, and both men paused.

“Who is it?” Andrei asked, raising his voice to be heard through the door.

“It’s the men from Scotland Yard to talk to you, sir,” said an unfamiliar voice. 

Andrei rolled his eyes to the ceiling, making John bite back a grin, but he called out in English, “Come in, gentlemen.” He turned back to John before the door opened. “Tell your mother we miss her skills,” he added, speaking Russian again.

“There’s no chance you’re getting her back,” said John, also in Russian, just as Lestrade and Sherlock entered the office. “She defected for a reason.”

“Oh, I know,” said Andrei. “But remember me to her, all the same, yes?”

John looked at him hard, and saw a nostalgic wistfulness to the other man that John well understood. He nodded.

“Alright,” he agreed, in English. “Can’t say how she’ll take it, though.”

Andrei gave a small, theatrical shrug.

“She was always an unpredictable woman.”

“Are we interrupting?” Lestrade asked, looking curious.

“Not at all,” Andrei assured him, looking avuncular again. “Dr Watson was simply sharing some stories with me. Thank you for your time, Doctor.”

“It was a pleasure,” John assured him.

Sherlock was looking impatient, so John followed him out. As they walked out of the embassy to where several cabs were waiting, Sherlock kept glancing at John out of the corner of his eyes.

“What?” John asked, after about a solid minute of furtive staring.

“You have the same nose,” Sherlock said at once.

“What?”

Sherlock gave a long-suffering sigh, and stopped, turning to face John.

“You and Mr Alenichev,” he said deliberately. “You have the same nose.”

It took John a second to get that. Then his mind went blank.

There was silence as Sherlock hailed a cab. John thought about his mother, and about Andrei.

“Well,” John said at last. “I always knew they were fairly fond of each other.”

Sherlock regarded him cautiously, as though he was waiting for some kind of explosive emotional outburst.

“Don’t look at me like that,” John said, annoyed. “My father was a good man, who deserved better than he got from Mama. He raised me and Harry after she - _died_ , you know. Just because it turns out I have some other bloke’s nose doesn’t make him any less my Dad. I’ve gone forty-one years thinking of him as my Dad, and that’s not going to change. Andrei–” John started, and stopped. “Andrei’s just the man I used to deliver letters to, that’s all,” he said at last. “Whose nose looks a lot like mine.”

“You’re taking it well,” said Sherlock eventually.

“Well, I don’t _know_ anything, not yet,” said John. “It’s just – just a coincidental likeness.” He changed the subject. “Tell me about this murder.”

Sherlock nodded, and sitting forward on the seat, began to explain everything he’d deduced at the embassy.

John listened to him with fond interest, and tried not to wonder about Andrei and his mother.

 

 


End file.
